Chris Cooley, Casualty of the Lockout?

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Chris Cooley, the outspoken tight end for the Washington Redskins and occasional Tony Romo antagonist, was placed on injured reserve by the team this week as a result of a left knee injury. Cooley had surgery to repair the knee toward the end of last season, but due to the lockout, couldn’t do his rehabilitation work at the team facility.

Now, Cooley is calling himself a casualty of the longest work stoppage in the history of the league.

“I feel 100 percent – and I’m not blaming anybody. I feel one hundred percent that I am a casualty for the season, of the lockout,” Cooley said, per the Washington Post. “I think it was a shame that they didn’t let players who had surgery spend time with the doctors and trainers that they trust on a daily basis. I wish I could’ve. I think what I went through in July, I could’ve went through in March. I started doing things and it slowly swelled up and I wasn’t here. I can ice it at home and do things at home … But I’ve never been through it before.”

Whether or not you’re a fan of Cooley’s--and we’re fully aware that many readers of this blog are not--it’s hard to doubt that the lockout, the inability to rehab the knee under the watchful eye of trained professionals, had a negative impact on Cooley’s efforts to bounce back from the procedure this season.

That said, Cooley is confident he will be able to return at full strength next season, and head coach Mike Shanahan recently said that he has no doubt that the team will hold onto the most statistically prolific tight end in franchise history. Which is a good thing, as, love him or hate him, he’s one of the more colorful characters present in this chapter of the Redskins-Cowboys rivalry.